Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk

What a development.

He's my favorite wincestie ever

Ishida was the only one that really witnessed Ichigo's pain and loss here and felt it with him.

Ishida alone actually fought along with and tried to protect Ichigo and spare him this pain, and when it happened, after he got cut down and failed to stop it, his whole attention was on Ichigo.

He shut his eyes to spare Ichigo one more person staring at his suffering I think. He looked, saw and took it all in, his failure and Ichigo's anguish, then tried to give him what privacy he needed in that moment.

No one else was really thinking of Ichigo and being there in the same space and moment as him.

Yes! And in each instance he does focus on Ichigo and take away a lesson about him.

Rukia is so busy trying to save him she can't think about the pain she's causing. Inoue is thinking only about herself, viewing everything through the lense of how she must have caused it and motivated it and how afraid she is of it when Ichigo transforms, then is not thinking of him at all when Ulquiorra dies - is focused instead on him and doesn't seem to notice Ichigo at all. Then all his friends/family were too absorbed in how bad/hurt they were by him attacking Tsukishima/Tsukishima's power.

Ishida on the other hand, worried ONLY about Ichigo's welfare from beginning to end.

And he doesn't just quietly sympathize with him. He DOES something about it.

He trains and insists on going to save Rukia with him - the only one that goes along for the same mission Ichigo is since everyone else has an agenda or is bloodlessly following behind Ichigo and not for Rukia.

He puts a stop to Ichigo butchering Ulquiorra because he knows how hard that action will hit him if he does it.

And, I think it can be argued, partially started his turncoat plan because he found out about the Soul King and put together the dots that Ichibe was planning to do that to Ichigo. After all - if he JUST wanted to take out Yhwach, why wait until (to his knowledge) Squad Zero were killed and the Royal Realm was in danger and Yhwach was at his strongest? Ishida has always acknowledged and worked with Ichigo's superior strength and power, but never hinged his plans on it and leaned on it without telling him. If he was incorporating Ichigo directly into his plan like that, he would have included him in the planning, but instead he .

Reviewing this moment again and it's actually a lot darker on Inoue's part than I remembered.

She run's past child Nel's collapsed form to Ichigo's side shouting she'll heal him and Ichigo immediately tells her to go heal Nel first and she freezes, then whips around, and then hesitates.

She doesn't just hesitate, she starts to turn back toward Ichigo anyway and stops again. It takes her a LONG moment to concede and then go.

She hadn't even thought to heal Nel, and when told to doesn't want to heal Nel.

Inoue really is viciously jealous of Nel after Ichigo shows awe in her. To the point she clearly is at best apathetic about her being injured and disabled, at worst prefers her that way so she can't outshine her around Ichigo.

Also really interesting is how the sound effects of the battle aren't present or are very small when she's speaking to Ichigo, but dominating the panels when she isn't - very much showing how her focus has narrowed so completely she doesn't notice anything else.

Also: Ichigo is so unimpressed with her here:

Like. He had to TELL her to go heal the child.

The difference in the tension in his face between these two panels says the first one isn't entirely a wince of pain, but moreso him pulling a disgusted expression. The first panel he IS wincing of course because he's in pain and it's probably taking some effort to talk, but you can see the WTF?! on his face clear as day. In the second one he's watching her with an assessing kind of caution and a frown as she leaves. He definitely caught that hesitation and does not approve.

I think now this is the moment Ichigo reassessed her and decided to never rely on her again, not the betrayal in TLA.

From the beginning Ichigo has always been concerned about collateral damage, making sure battles stay away from bystanders or to drag it away from other people who are injured, making sure others get taken care of first.

Inoue just disregarded someone vulnerable in a way he never could.

Nel is his friend, unconscious and bloodied and a child and even being brutally beaten he never stopped thinking of her, but Inoue forgot her completely as soon as she hit the ground because all she was paying attention to was Ichigo.

TLA showed how shallow their connection was and how easily and completely she could and would distrust him on someone elses word, to the point he couldn't BEG her to listen to or believe him, but here is where she showed in a pretty irrevocable way that she was unreliable and couldn't be trusted to do the right thing or to be properly present and where she needs to be in battle.

There's also a really interesting parallel between Ichigo and Byakuya here in what seems to be simultaneous moments.

Byakuya has been badly injured and is waiting for Isane to heal Rukia and Hanatarou before he allows her to work on him, and she doesn't argue, just heals Rukia and Hanatarou and leaves Byakuya to last like he orders:

A sharp contrast to Inoue. Unlike her, Isane is a real healer in ability and personality.

Inoue, like every time Ichigo is around, pays no attention or care to anyone else but him, even when they are in dire need of her help, and when told to go help someone else or do another task always hesitates or argues or simply ignores it and keeps focused on him.

And every time Ichigo isn't impressed by it.

Inoue is never able to read or understand Ichigo, but because of her crush she's spent a lot of time studying his expressions and I think she understood his disgust at her here.

When she does run toward Nel it's more like she's running away from him and his judgement rather than rushing to help Nel.

I think she was ashamed of this moment, and both literally and figuratively ran away from it. She healed Nel as requested and then shoved the incident down to be forgotten, and so never grew from it, which is why she later wishes Nel hadn't been healed from her disability because she didn't like her hugging Ichigo (and had likely had her feelings of jealousy and inadequacy recently compounded by Nel taking that adult form to save her and everyone from Quilge), and why even in the final battle she gets underfoot trying to heal him instead of attempting to properly participate.

I do like this moment in Hueco Mundo because of how it's a showcase of how her healing isn't really altruistic, but is a direct action of her own selfish desires. Her power is born of her rejecting the ugly reality of her personal life, not from her wanting to help others. And that's shown time and again in how she uses her power. She never becomes a great healer or warrior, she just focuses on that one, self-serving desire to heal Ichigo.

Healing Ichigo is what she wants to do.

What's needed gets forgotten or ignored by her in favor of it every time if it doesn't directly involve Ichigo, but every time that isn't what Ichigo wants; and his expressing that never changes her thoughts or actions.

Bleach Week 2026! ft. UraIchi

Monday, July 13th - Sunday, July 19th

AO3 Collection